


before the day is done

by misgivings (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Deathfic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-27
Updated: 2011-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-25 00:06:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/misgivings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nothing you want less than to remember everything, so, of course, that's what you do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	before the day is done

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a recent drawing of Eridan by everking on tumblr. This is only here because she was gracious enough to give me permission to use her art as inspiration, so that credit goes to her, and her, alone, for that, along with credit for the first line in the story below.
> 
> Otherwise, there's nothing special to note, this is simply a relatively short piece featuring deader-than-dead Eridan. So...enjoy!

Your name is Eridan Ampora, and you are well and truly dead.

It’s not what you expected it would be. Not that you ever thought about it very much before. Not on purpose, at least. Just the idea of it made bile rise in your throat, sour and heavy, made your hands shake, almost imperceptibly but for the way your rings would knock together, softly.

Yeah, alright, at this point it doesn’t matter what you admit, so you might as well put it out there, death scared you shitless.

But, still, you had this idea of it. An idea of nothing. Of darkness enveloping you on all sides, slick tendrils of emptiness, being surrounded by a lack. Not a lack of anything in particular, just of everything, absolutely everything. All of it gone.

You’re not entirely sure if what death actually is, well, if it’s any better than that.

What it feels like–what it felt like before you opened your eyes–was like you were surrounded by a heavy, damp sort of air. It felt like an uncomfortable moment, an awkward pause. The beat before someone replies to you when you tell them they’re all that matters to you in the world.

It was a familiar feeling.

It took you a while to open your eyes. Or, perhaps more accurately, to realize that you could open your eyes. It seemed like that should have been impossible, but, somehow, it wasn’t.

Small bubbles were the first thing you saw. They were coming out of you own mouth, escaping through your slightly parted lips with no sound, expanding as they floated upwards. It didn’t really strike you as odd, not really, that you didn’t seem to actually be breathing, whether through your mouth or gills.

Your chest is as still as your heart.

And you’re surrounded by water that isn’t really water. There’s nothing else it can be, deep blue and full of long strands of seaweed that never touch you. But it still feels as if it’s nothing but air, unsubstantial and offering no comfort whatsoever.

Sometimes you get the very beginning of a shiver at the bottom of your spine, a shuddering that dissipates as soon as it starts. It leaves you with a feeling of anticipation that never goes away. You’re always on the edge of something that you can’t quite pinpoint.

Up above (miles and miles above your head, if you had to guess) you can see the smallest pinpricks of light, but you don’t have it in you to try and reach them.

You’re not sure that you ever will.

.

The middle of your stomach doesn’t hurt. It’s more of a ghosting pain, a constant pulling sensation that never quite leads to separation.

There’s something like a glowing thread wrapped around where the wound should be. It’s an insubstantial thing, like a ray of sun, impossible for you to hold or tug on, though you feel a slight warmth emanating from it at all times.

Sometimes it seems to get tighter, but you must just be imagining things.

.

Time passes oddly. It might have been only five minutes, or it could have been a few days, by the time you realize there are other bubbles coming from below, rising upwards.

They never get too big, just enough to fit in the palms of your hands.

Perhaps it means that there are others here, stuck in the depths, still and waiting for something that they aren’t sure will ever come.

It seems to you, though, that if there were others you would have heard them. But, then, you’ve never tried to speak, never screamed or so much as whimpered quietly.

You try now, whispering the beginning of a word, tentatively, but the result is nothing more than a rather large bubble making its way out of your mouth, disappearing with several others before you even have a chance to get a good look at it.

After that, you don’t try to say anything for a long time.

.

You don’t get hungry or thirsty. You don’t even get bored, and you never feel restless.

Sleep doesn’t seem necessary, but you do it sometimes, anyway. At first it was to see if you would dream anything, if that was possible. And now you sleep because you don’t dream, because it’s nothing more than closing and opening your eyes, really.

You never much liked dreaming, not after the angels.

So much blood on your hands, and (it’s not really there, but) even being submerged in water won’t wash it away.

.

The first time it happens it’s almost nothing.

A sudden flash of color, brighter than anything you’ve seen in (hours, days, years) ages, but that’s all it is, and nothing more.

Thinking about it, later, you can’t help but think you saw a bit of dark pink, a rich fuchsia color in the form of liquid, dripping from something you’d destroyed.

The thought makes your eyes heat, makes you clench your fists and dig your nails into your skin, creating half-moon shaped marks on your palms. You don’t cry, but you come close to it and–

That’s when you realize that you’re lonely.

.

It takes a long time for it to happen again.

For a while it’s all you think about. You yearn for it to happen again, you obsess over it, closing your eyes and bidding it to happen again, wishing, desperate, and commanding, unhinged.

Of course, it doesn’t happen until after you let ago. Until the minute when you finally think of something else (of nothing, honestly), and just watch some of the bubbles float up to the surface.

Then it’s an image, one that lasts for only a few scant seconds, but lasts nonetheless.

It leaves you gasping for breath, for some reason, gives you the distinct feeling of being overwhelmed, and you have to close your eyes for a few long moments.

There’s a pain in your abdomen, now, a dull pain that pulses steadily.

You close your eyes and see more around you than you do with your eyes open.

.

The things that come to you next are names.

You hadn’t forgotten them exactly, they were all there in your mind, but they were nothing but syllables and sounds. Now they have meaning, now they connect to someone, now they hurt.

Distantly, you wonder if everyone’s dead.

Spitefully, you hope they are.

.

You remember mustard yellows and reds and blues, mixed together. You remember steel grey floors and walls, the sounds of honks. You remember loud yelling and someone laughing (cackling) in response.

You remember doing everything wrong.

.

It seems that, now, you should be able to understand everything.

By all accounts, you’re detached, floating in an ocean that probably doesn’t even exist. An outside force that can only see in, that can only see past events, over and over.

That’s how it is now. It isn’t quite like watching things on a screen, but more like being surrounded by them, a whirlwind of memories, barraging you no matter how much you resist.

But it doesn’t matter how many times you see the sequence of events.

You’d do it all over again, and you’d regret it, god, how you would (how you do) but there’s no point in pretending like the sight of him and her doesn’t anger you beyond words. Knowing you shouldn’t feel that way–knowing that you should respect her choice–doesn’t change the fact that it upsets you, that it always will.

Nothing has really changed.

.

In the end, it happens without much warning.

All around you, everything is dark. You can see the vague outlines of the seaweed and bubbles you know are still there, but not much else.

You don’t know how long its been. If worlds have been destroyed or created. Or if only seconds have passed.

The pain in your abdomen is constant, now, and it’s–a burning fire, a tearing sensation, an ache that runs through you, cod, it’s–agonizing.

You grit your teeth, you bite down on your lip, you draw blood.

In front of you a thick, slowly flowing stream of purple blood appears, just barely visible, and, for the first time you feel truly helpless rather than content to stay here forever. You want to leave.

Even if you have to relive every moment just as it was, without being able to change a thing–

You want to go back.

Looking upwards (and, somewhere, in the back of your mind, you realize how long it’s been since you’ve done this) you can only just see light filtered down to you. Whatever the source of it is, you know that, now, it’s impossible to reach.

You close your eyes, and it’s the best you’ve ever felt.


End file.
